The Bangladesh Cricket Board moved to reactivate the bowling action review committee after the International Cricket Council banned its main off-spinner Sohag Gazi for an illegal action, said an official on Thursday. The ICC banned Sohag from bowling in international cricket after he was found to have extended his elbow for almost 25 degrees during the recent biomechanical test in Cardiff.
It highlighted BCB’s inaction against illegal action in domestic cricket where chucking is very common. The BCB formed a bowling action review committee after left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak was banned from bowling in 2008, but the committee remained inactive for years.
The three-member committee comprising former cricketers Azhar Hossain, Wahidul Gani and Omar Khaled Rumi initially identified some problem in action of players like Waskurini Palash, Arafat Sunny, Farhad Hossain, Faisal Hosain, Yasir Arafat and helped them rectify their problem.
However, they went totally inactive after 2009-10 season for various factors, which included pressure from the top clubs.
A committee member asking not to be identified on Thursday said top clubs opposed their activities once they identified problem in the action of their players.
‘It is extremely difficult to work under such pressure. You cannot take off a player just because he represents a certain club. This is ridiculous but we were helpless,’ he said.
The committee member cited the example of Pakistan who recently took drastic measures against illegal bowling action after their premier off-spinner Saeed Ajmal was reported and subsequently banned.
‘Just look at Pakistan,’ he said. ‘They identified 39 bowlers with illegal action in domestic cricket after Ajmal was banned. I saw in media that 19 of them were banned as they need rectification. I cannot imagine a similar situation in Bangladesh.’
BCB cricket operations chairman Akram Khan said on Thursday that they are planning to restart the project after being hit hard by with the ICC with the World Cup just six months away.
The BCB is more concerned as another Bangladeshi bowler Al-Amin Hossain has also been reported with suspect action recently and is due to attend a biomechanical test in Chennai on October 18.
‘We will reorganise the bowling action review committee so that these kinds of problems are solved at the domestic level,’ Akram told reporters at Mirpur.
Akram added that they did not take the matter seriously as there was no objection raised from the international cricket authority.
Apart from Sohag and Al-Amin, Bangladesh had faced similar kind of situation earlier with players like Naimur Rahman, Mohamamd Rafique and Abdur Razzak. Ace Bangladeshi bowler Sakib al Hasan was also reported during this playing time at the Under-19 team.
‘Whenever we faced the problem we formed a committee. But due to some problem we could not continue our work,’ said Akram.
‘When the present committee took over the charge we did not face any such allegation regarding anyone. But the situation has changed so we had to take steps to tackle it.’
-With New Age input
